Monday, October 1, 2012

Birthday Weekend: Day One

What a long pause between posts but my goodness! I have had such a manic weekend and I definitely needed some days to recover - to be honest I'm not even there yet but I'll start to fill you in.
Monday (24th September) was my birthday! I turned the slightly intimidating age of 27...officially late twenties, only three years til the big one but hey, I celebrated in STYLE.
Some of my closest friends came out to Paris for five days of fun...it was epic.

OK - this isn't everyone...but it's a group shot so, left to right...Fiona, my gorgeous little sister came for her first visit to Paris with Jon, his first time to Paris too! Then in red we have Rosie, who we've met before and lives in Paris so doesn't count as a visitor but does count as one of the party people, then Chris, my ever so awesome friend who came out to Paris and brought my TV making him an all round Legend (captial L) again! Then it's me - hello! Then it's Tom, who we've met before and who has been to Paris several times before, and Claire on the other end who is my old flatmate and is a fellow London 'flee-er' as she moved home to Northern Ireland last July.

And Shreena and Krishna Punwasi (front on the right) came over from Brussels (they met in Paris and married four years later, she's from Leicester, he's from Texas and they now live in Brussels - yes, it's a whole story) and brought Krishna's long time friend, Neil (just behind them).

All in all, it was a hell of a group! Suffice to say that day one was pretty exhausting, Shreena, Krishna and Neil arrived first in the morning and Shreena and I (having studied together in Paris for a year back in the good old days of 2007) grabbed some alone time before everyone else started arriving and her husband claimed her back from me.

Chris and Tom were next in the afternoon...as I mentioned Chris brought my TV...in the most legendary way possible...

I was able to drag it home like a suitcase - seriously, Chris is awesome.

Claire arrived a couple of hours later, and, after some drinks, we all went for dinner...some of us were brave (myself included) and actually tried snails for the first time.

They taste a little like garlic mushrooms...and I can say now, I've tried them, they were fine, I won't be ordering them again.On that note, I completely recommend the restaurant we went to on rue descartes. We went there cos Hemingway used to live there and this very much excited Tom! It's in the group pic above - La maison de verlaine. The 'menu' was really reasonable and the food was lovely!

YUM!

Fiona and Jon were the last to arrive and got in not long after 11 that night, I got them to the hotel and got a text from the rest of them telling me they were drinking in front of the Eiffel Tower...naturellement.

Some brilliant juggling, less brilliant trips to the toilet...and many bottles of wine later and we all toddled home, some of us a little drunk. On my street, on the way home, Tom, as usual, was louder than necessary but it resulted in a hilarious conversation...

Tom: YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!
Me: Tom be quiet! Some people have work in the morning.
Krishna: Yeah...FUCK THOSE PEOPLE!

Gotta enjoy Krishna...follow his blog about life in Brussels here - it really is entertaining as anything!